Passing on the left

After getting the cat-sitting situation squared away at the last minute, plus all the other final details of planning for a 3 week holiday, we finally got over to Rob’s folks’ place on Mercer Island to swap vehicles and pick up the canoe. One little near mishap later with the front end of the canoe nearly falling off, we got it loaded on the roof of the vehicle affectionately known as the “Behemoth”- actually a Toyota Sequoia and were otherwise all packed up and ready to go. The finishing touch was securing the boat with four separate tie down straps, after which we stepped back to admire our handiwork. It’s looking like a big red artillery rocket up there! By 11:30 AM we were on the road and heading towards Montana and the Upper Missouri River.

Earlier in the week, on Monday we took a little shake-down trip in the canoe on the Cedar River. Wildlife was abundant as we floated along in the bucolic Maple Valley area all the way to not-so-bucolic downtown Renton. Along the way we passed underneath the main library which is built directly over the river, and then past the Boeing 737 plant before dumping out in Lake Washington. Water was pretty fast moving while we were on the river and kept us swiftly moving downstream with very little paddling- mostly just steering and avoiding logs and sweepers. It was shallow enough in many spots to easily spot many steelhead and trout moving upstream. As we approached the lake however, an inertia came over us, and we needed to strenuously paddle to make any progress in returning to Marina Ritz on Mercer Island. Over the course of this 4 hour trip, we realized we needed two things- a bailer/sponge and some gloves to break in the callouses. Other than that, we thought we were in pretty good shape. Furthermore, we reaffirmed our affinity for paddling on rivers as opposed to lakes for obvious reasons!

Freshly forming callouses from our Cedar River outing still healing up, we joked every time we saw a power boat being towed that we would gladly trade our oars for a motor! Actually, we are looking forward to our canoe journey on the Missouri River. And unlike Lewis and Clark, we only be paddling downstream!

Back to the present, within minutes of departure this morning we were up to cruising speed on hwy I-90 heading eastboound. And mere moments after that we were hearing an unbearably loud howling, rattling noise coming from up top. The culprit was the tie-down straps, which were too loose and were up there flapping like a wizard’s sleeve. After two or three stops to make small adjustments, all of the howling and rattling noises were reduced to a mere mild roar. Problem solved, and so we were soon comfortably back up to speed with hardly a whimper from the big red rocket.

Destination today is Coeur d’Alene Idaho, which is about 300 miles and more or less half way to Upper Missouri River Breaks area in Montana.

Vaguely aware of how thirsty this big rig is, we had earlier been joking that if gas hit $3 per gallon we were going to downgrade to the Camry. And if it hit $4 per gallon again, we’d just paddle somewhere local. At last check it was $2.91. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when as we were blissfully cruising along at 80 mph climbing up towards Snoqualmie Pass, Amy pointed at one of the little gauges on the console which read 14.8 and asked “Is that mpg reading accurate?” Oh oh…

The Sequoia, as many modern vehicles do, has a feature that tells you what your MPG is. At 80 mph, it was reading a very sobering 14.5 mpg. We soon discoverd that if we slowed to 60 mph our miles per gallon increased to 21 mpg. And at 56 mph it topped out at 23 mpg. Extrapolate that mpg increase out over a couple thousand miles, and we quickly surmised it might behoove us to slow down a wee bit..

As an inertia came over the vehicle and the mpg readings slowly improved, we noticed a curious behavioural change come over us. At first it was kind of a game to see how high we could get the mpg. Then we started to believe we were ‘going green’ and helping the environment by slowing down. Finally we realized we were just being economical. Well aware of the great distances we needed to travel over the course of our journey, we didnt want to spend most of our dough on gas. So we ultimately set the cruise control to around double-nickels and inched across Washington state, with every vehicle on the road, including big rigs and RV’s, charging by in the fast lane- many with none too salutary gestures of disapproval .

We crossed Snoqualmie pass within an hour and a half of departure, and traversed Washington State in about 5 hours before reaching Spokane on the Eastern side of the state.

I lost the bet about there being a “Welcome to Idaho” sign (there of course is one) , and soon after crossing the border we arrived in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. After a quick pass through town we pulled up at the State Motel and set up shop for the evening. After tucking away the Behemoth and the big red rocket we took a little walk thought town. Turns out Coeur d’Alene is a very pleasant little town, right on a very large lake, with mountains looming in the distance. With the sun setting over the lake and mountains as we strolled along the waterfront, it seemed we made a good choice to stop here for our first night on the road.